Export to Dreamweaver?

**AboutTime** · 05 July 2012, 12:24 PM

Hello TalkGraphics,

is it possible to export five Xara files, where most caps at 250 pages each, to Dreamweaver? What I need done in Dreamweaver is mainly the design - which would be very easy if I could combine all five files into one (is that possible?).

I really hope this is possible, otherwise I have to do hundreds of hours of work again.

Thanks in advance,

**gwpriester** · 05 July 2012, 12:26 PM

I really don't think this is possible unless Dreamweaver can work with Xara's exported HTML files and I do not think it can.

Most people in this forum would argue that it is much easier to design in Xara Web Designer or Designer Pro. I for one.

**AboutTime** · 05 July 2012, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

I really don't think this is possible unless Dreamweaver can work with Xara's exported HTML files and I do not think it can.

Most people in this forum would argue that it is much easier to design in Xara Web Designer or Designer Pro. I for one.

Aww

. There is no non official extension or something that allows this progress then? Thanks for your reply.

EDIT: Xara Web Designer is surely easy to use and design websites in, however, when it comes to thousands of pages divided onto several files, it is much easier with one main css-sheet that applies for everything - at least from my point of view.

**mwenz** · 05 July 2012, 02:38 PM

AboutTime,

For a site like yours, a couple things. One, a mock-up is extremely fast in Xara. Moving design elements to style sheets thereafter is easy. I think you know this part.

Creating a large site such as yours may not even be best to do in DW. Depending upon the content, a database-driven site may well be a far better choice than DW. Why? Even DW isn't really made for composing and maintaining thousands of pages. But a CMS or .Net (ASP) systems are. As you evidently have DW, it's ASP support sucks (well, Adobe jerked it out a couple versions back) and so that leaves you with either rolling your own PHP and MySQL together (even with templates and sample files it is a chore). Or simply choose one of the lighter-weight CMS systems.

Take care, Mike

**gwpriester** · 05 July 2012, 02:51 PM

I agree about large sites. I have used NetObjects Fusion in the past for large sites, and it is better designed for that.

I love Designer Pro X for the work I do, and most of my sites are reasonably small. I do one site that has 84 artist's galleries but each gallery is basically a separate website.

**AboutTime** · 05 July 2012, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by mwenz

AboutTime,

For a site like yours, a couple things. One, a mock-up is extremely fast in Xara. Moving design elements to style sheets thereafter is easy. I think you know this part.

Creating a large site such as yours may not even be best to do in DW. Depending upon the content, a database-driven site may well be a far better choice than DW. Why? Even DW isn't really made for composing and maintaining thousands of pages. But a CMS or .Net (ASP) systems are. As you evidently have DW, it's ASP support sucks (well, Adobe jerked it out a couple versions back) and so that leaves you with either rolling your own PHP and MySQL together (even with templates and sample files it is a chore). Or simply choose one of the lighter-weight CMS systems.

Take care, Mike

Hey Mike,

thanks for your answer. I do not know anything about NetObjects Fusion, but it surely does look interesting. The reason why I am interested in DW is the ability and easy-ness upon designing the actual css style sheet

.

**mwenz** · 06 July 2012, 04:09 AM

Hi About,

I can dig them up, but if you Google it, you will find links to web sites that you can design the CSS and download the file. They are complete with paragraphs of sample text, etc. And if you don't have Dreamweaver as of yet and want to save a bunch of cash, download the trial (60 days I believe) of Microsoft Expression Web. I have pretty much stopped using DW altogether except when I have to. If you like it, then get the MS Expression Professional package (unless the items in the other packages are of use). The Professional package can often be had on Amazon for a little over $100 and I have seen it at $99 before.

Lot's of options. But like I said, there are likely better choices for a site like you propose. And those platforms are OpenSource, like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. And there are plenty of others.

Take care, Mike

**pauland** · 06 July 2012, 07:43 AM

I'm not sure why DW is so easily dismissed here for use with CMS systems - it's probably the most commonly used tool for creating and editing templates for popular CMS systems such as wordpress.

Of course, the majority of people producing CMS understand HTML and CSS and often never use the design view of DW, or other editors, but edit the CSS and HTML rather than rely on the tools to manipulate the code for them.

There are a ton of code editors for HTML/CSS out there and they all work well, but none have the ease of use of Xara.

Many professional web designers just use text editors.

I'm not sure what the problem is that you're trying to solve, AboutTime.

**mwenz** · 06 July 2012, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by pauland

I'm not sure why DW is so easily dismissed here for use with CMS systems - it's probably the most commonly used tool for creating and editing templates for popular CMS systems such as wordpress.

Err, no one I personally know uses anything other than a good text editor--though there is usually a SVN involved with the larger businesses because there is more than one person working.

Of course, the majority of people producing CMS understand HTML and CSS and often never use the design view of DW, or other editors, but edit the CSS and HTML rather than rely on the tools to manipulate the code for them.

Which is why they don't use DW or EW <g>...

There are a ton of code editors for HTML/CSS out there and they all work well, but none have the ease of use of Xara.

Xara is not a code editor.

I'm not sure what the problem is that you're trying to solve, AboutTime.

In the first post, About says what the problem is. The why one would get to 5 XAR files with about 250 pages each in them for a total of at least 1000 pages is the mystery to me <g>.

But looking at making site-wide changes on more than 10 pages would be enough for me. I'm a wuss. Which is also why when working on an html-based site I'll use EW more often than not--I like hitting a design-time preview at times. With a CMS I am fine with leaving a browser open and hitting refresh. But not in something as simple as html. A dichotomy of my life.

Take care, Mike

**pauland** · 06 July 2012, 01:15 PM

There's a reason why large sites are built using CMS systems using HTML templates - they are easy to change stylistically and organisation is much more manageable.

DW is quite useful for "live" previews on mobile formats - it's still useful as a code editor with syntax highlighting, page verification and prompting.

I have met professional web designers that just use plain text editors, though they are rare.